52 – Apple Vision Pro

The Apple Vision Pro is out and we each got ourselves one… Our first impressions on the early days of the Vision Pro. Will it change the world forever, like the iPhone?Navigation:Intro (01:34)Overall… TL;DRIn-depth analysisCompetition with Meta Quest 3ConclusionOur co-hosts:Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmittNuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedroOur show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture newsIntro Subscribe To Our Podcast Nuno G. PedroIn this episode, episode 52 of Tech Deciphered, we will talk about the Apple Vision Pro. It's now out, and both Bertrand and myself got ourselves one. So what are our first impressions on the early days of the Vision Pro? Will this revolutionise the future of input and output? Is this the new iPhone? Is this finally the product that Tim Cook has developed that shows us that he is the future of Apple? Let's start with the overall impressions, Bertrand. What are your overall impressions?Bertrand SchmittWhat are my overall impressions? It's a mixed bag, that's for sure. It's a very impressive piece of tech. I think my worry is that it has been oversold by Apple, but also by a lot of YouTubers. When you keep looking at these YouTube videos of people using it for eight hours a day, I think it's totally, utterly bullshit. There is no way in hell any normal human being will put that on their head eight hours a day unless forced to do it.Nuno G. PedroUnless you're working on your neck like you're a Formula One driver or something.Bertrand SchmittExactly. You are working on your neck. Yes, it's neck training. No, more seriously, overall, and we will go more in depth later on this episode, I feel it's a great device for maybe two use cases. One is if you want to watch 3D content. To watch 3D content, 3D movies, potentially at some point 3D sports, when we get that, we don't have that yet so far, 3D concert, then I think It's awesome.Bertrand SchmittWatching 90 minutes of 3D movies, it's just an insane experience for me. It's just amazing. It's your best way to consume a Blade Runner 2049, a Dune. It's actually maybe better than in a movie theatre if you combine it with a proper headset because the audio is quite good, the bass are pretty poor. For me today, as a mainstream consumer, that's the best main use case. For businesses, there might be some reason to look at, if you are doing 3D design, to look at 3D objects in the middle of your room, I can see that as well.Bertrand SchmittBeyond that, I think we're talking about very stretch use cases. One of these could be to record a video of what you are doing and sharing that with other for training. I could see that probably for training purposes. But beyond that, at this stage, I'm not sure what's the point to put 2D panels in the middle of a 3D vision with a headset that's very heavy and very uncomfortable.Bertrand SchmittI don't know your experience, wearing the headset, but anyone telling you that this headset is nice to wear, do they have a metal head to wear that comfortably? I have no clue. I mean, I'm hopeful there will be better straps, but for me, it's still a nightmare to wear it.Nuno G. PedroYeah, this has been tested by 007 villains, so they all can send away the thing on their head. Fully agree with your assessment. It's impossible have it on your head, to be honest, even for more than an hour-and-a-half, two hours. An hour-and-a-half and two hours is already a lot. So even watching that movie, you might have to take a little break to watch that movie, in particular if it's over two hours, which many of the Sci-Fi movies actually are, or at least the canonical ones.Nuno G. PedroI agree that for the consumer side, I think the consumption of content will be great. Maybe I would say besides immersive content, immersive communication, we'll get back to that later on the Zoom experience and the FaceTime experience, so I won't unravel that whole discussion right now, but the immersive communication piece, I think, will get finally started at some point.Nuno G. PedroFor me, those two pieces are the pieces that are going to be core to the early use cases of the Vision Pro. Business, agree with you. Some collaboration tools, some consumption also of immersive content for business is quite powerful, but it's $3,500, right? It's so expensive. I mean, it's more expensive than a really good laptop or an iMac.Bertrand SchmittIt's a price range of your high-end MacBook Pro.Nuno G. PedroYeah, it's the price range of the best-in-class laptop that you could use out there from Apple. It's just expensive as hell. I feel, maybe giving it the other angle, I feel it's a platform. The Vision Pro is a platform that they launched where they don't have any killer apps yet, almost. Except maybe for the content, immersive content piece, they have no killer apps day one.Nuno G. PedroAs I said, I think they will have immersive communication day two, day 100, whenever a lot of these bugs are sorted out. But day one, that's it. They launched a platform, which is the Vision Pro. It's really exceptional. As you said at the beginning, it's great technology. It's really incredible. It does show us a glimpse of the future, but it's not the future yet. I agree with you because of the size and how heavy the device is, I'm not sure as a platform, it would stand a test of time, even with software updates, et cetera.Nuno G. PedroI have a bunch of things that I have issues with this on. We were just before recording this episode, trying to sort out My Persona, which is in beta trial, but it needs the optical ID thing, and the optical ID thing for some reason is not working for me, and I don't know why, and maybe I need to clean it better. I'm not sure.Nuno G. PedroIt's just there's still all these little quirks at the core of the experience like optical ID piece that are just like, "Guys, why did you launch it?" Maybe you should have waited a little bit more and have that ecosystem a little bit more prepared.Bertrand SchmittYeah, I think the usual way to launch a product where we present you a bit in advance. We share with you a developer conference the details of the API, you can learn how to compile on your Mac, make it work, but you cannot access the device, and you have to wait so long before you can access the device.Bertrand SchmittBasically, most developers who have developed any app for the Vision Pro probably didn't have any access to the Vision Pro itself. You are guaranteed a few months of horrible bugs trying to just make it work. Surprisingly enough, even as you say, the Apple apps are actually not working so well. You're having issues with Apple ID.Bertrand SchmittMe, I'm facing a contact page that's empty, and everything is actually properly linked on my account and everything, but it's empty by default. I have to manually add everyone so that I can FaceTime them. It's just pretty insane, so it's not a bug per se, it's just horrible design. It's very weird out-of-the-box. I still want to say that out-of-the-box, that media consumption with Apple TV if you're watching 3D content, it's totally insane.Bertrand SchmittFor me, it has replaced my home cinema at home. I'm putting a big high-end headset. I have a really good bass as a result, and the Vision Pro, and it's the best movie theatre experience I ever had. It beats a movie theatre because there is no one around blocking my view. I'm in the perfect spot, and it's better 3D that you can have in a movie theatre. It's better colour. You have an OLED screen versus a projection.Bertrand SchmittFor me, there is one use case, I'm very surprised that they have not pushed hard on it, because a lot of their other use case are simply not there. Another piece I see a lot, I mean, Apple is showing off, you are watching your Apple Vision Pro in a plane. Come on. I mean, this stuff is the size of a backpack. When the box to put your Vision Pro in, it's on backpack. We're seriously going to transport that in a plane? You don't take any other luggage, it's just your Vision Pro with you? I mean, this is nuts.Bertrand SchmittPeople will say, "Oh, yeah, it's great. It's an external screen for my Mac." Come on, you can get an external screen that's a small, slim light and put in your backpack on top of your Mac and everything else. That's not a realistic alternative. At home or at work, of course, you have an external screen if that's what you need. Don't tell me you need a Vision Pro for an external screen. I think this use case just makes zero sense.Bertrand SchmittFor me, at this stage today, makes zero sense. But that media consumption has really shocked me because I'm doing it only once every day at night. The other piece that has shocked me is the quality of the special 3D. If you start watching a 3D object in your home, it can be a Formula One car, it can be a human body, it just sits there perfectly at the right height with the right lighting in a very good pass-through environment in the middle of your living room, for instance, it's awesome. I don't have a real use case for it, but it's super, super awesome. I'm sure some 3D professionals will have use case for it. That is also very, very well nailed. But everything else at this stage, it's like whatever.Nuno G. PedroThere's this video with the Apple Immersive video stuff that has all their nature videos that are available for free. Also the Alicia Keys.Bertrand SchmittYes, the Apple Immersive videos are awesome, awesome.Nuno G. PedroThe Alicia Keys recording thing, whatever. I had a friend of mine test it over the weekend,...